


open casket

by aubadechild



Series: ShuAke Confidant Week 2018 [8]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Makoto and Ann are dating but it's super in the background so i'm not officially tagging it, Mutual Pining, Phantom Thief shenanigans, Pining, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 14:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16536491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aubadechild/pseuds/aubadechild
Summary: Just when he thinks the surreptitious crossing of their paths might have been a one-time fluke, Ren's end-of-summer party grinds to a halt when Akechi Goro shows up to crash it.{ mini-fic written for Shuake Confidant Week 2018 Day Eight. }





	open casket

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is a sequel to [closed casket](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16455590) & [wake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16471784).

At least _real_ ghosts had the decency to be _dead_ by the time they started haunting.

Ren had found Akechi’s gloves not long after he’d departed the cafe, and without a second thought he had tossed them into the garbage and gone upstairs for the night. Sojiro had been kind enough to let him stay for free over the summer, provided he picked up a few shifts here and there, and he was grateful for his once-guardian’s hospitality. However the attic bedroom remained untouched from the time he had lived in it—he’d visited Tokyo a handful of times since then, but only on daytrips, never to stay overnight—and at first he had found it hard to sleep with the weight of his past failure looming over him. It was heavy at home as well, sure, but this was where it lived. This was its lair. 

With the knowledge that Akechi had not only survived somehow, but had seen fit to casually stop by a good few years after the incident when the wound had at last started on its slow scabbing over, Ren could not tell whether the weight had actually lifted a bit, or if it had simply risen in preparation to drop down on him like an anvil in a vintage cartoon. 

After two hours of lying awake and staring up at the ceiling, Ren cursed silently and pushed himself to his feet. He padded downstairs, violently threw back the lid of the garbage can, and recovered Akechi’s worn black gloves. 

Ren had no way of contacting him. With the way he had all but kicked him out of the establishment, and Akechi’s blind willingness to do as he was told, he felt certain the ex-detective would never return. Akechi wasn’t the type to give chase in the first place. Lightning like that wouldn’t strike twice. 

Besides, leaving the gloves seemed a deliberate gesture. A definite conclusion to the chapter of their lives which they had shared, however briefly. 

Back upstairs, Ren swiped away a layer of dust thicker than his pinky finger and laid the gloves out atop the ancient television. They could remain here, with the rest of the things he was still trying to outrun. 

* * *

A week passed, then two, and time slipped on with growing ease the farther Ren got from their uncomfortable reunion. On the days he didn’t work Ryuji took him out for ramen, or he and Haru and Futaba and Yusuke snuck Morgana out for sushi, or Ann and Makoto permitted him to third-wheel one of their glamorous dates. Due to conflicting schedules no one seemed to be able to coordinate a time at which they could all meet, but he made sure to squeeze in every possible minute of free time with his friends. 

It helped. Sometimes thoughts of Akechi descended into his subconscious instead of staring him directly in the eyes. But they lingered regardless. _Was he safe? What had happened to him? What was he doing? Did he have somewhere to sleep at night?_ Ren’s friends knew him well enough to sense when something was off, but how could he explain that the man who murdered Haru’s father and betrayed the entire team was alive—even if not well—and had visited him? Even if he did, would they understand the complexity of his emotions regarding the situation? 

Did he want them to? 

The end of summer hung over the horizon, and then, suddenly, it had arrived. The retired Phantom Thieves of Hearts had cleared their schedules in preparation for the going-away party Ren was hosting at Leblanc. 

“Whoa, I’m first?! Awesome!” Ryuji announced as he burst through the door. Ren started, almost losing his grip on the cake tray he had been removing from the oven. 

“ _Technically_ Morgana was first,” Ren replied, setting pastry on the counter to cool.

“Yeah, ‘cause he lives with you! That doesn’t count!” 

Ryuji set down a grocery bag of various snacks and went to give Morgana a rough scratch between the ears. Morgana purred, but he wasn’t happy about it.

Soon after came Makoto and Ann, hand-in-hand and looking a bit like they’d walked off the set of _Mean Girls_ , but that illusion shattered instantly as they both went to give Ren a warm greeting. 

“Thank you so much for having us!” Makoto told him, and Ann nodded in agreement. 

“Yeah! It’s too bad the only time everyone could get together is when we’re all gonna be apart again. At least it’s just till next year!” Ann said. 

“Hey, why don’t we just buy a big house so we can all live together! Ann, you’re rich and famous now! And Makoto, aren’t you gonna be a lawyer? Yeah, we could get a mansion, with one of those slides that goes from your bedroom into a pool…” Ryuji trailed off, eyes glazed over in a daydream. 

Ann rolled her eyes. “Dream on, Ryuji. Why don’t you go make your _own_ money?”

Before Ryuji could complain, Futaba and Yusuke stirred up a ruckus as they elbowed each other in an attempt to step through the narrow doorframe at the same time. Behind them, Haru giggled. 

“Your savioooor is heeeeeere!” Futaba shouted once she had pushed past him, sticking her arms out in a triumphant pose. 

“Savior!” Yusuke scoffed. “I find that rather presumptuous—“ 

“It’s a _reference_ , Fox. I wouldn’t expect _you_ to understand.”

“Hello, everyone,” Haru said through a laugh. “Ren, I brought some fresh tomatoes. Where should I put them?” 

Ren’s face hurt from grinning. He was thankful to see them each individually, or occasionally in smaller groups, but he missed their dynamic as a team most of all. They had all grown in numerous ways since that time they saved the world, but when they were all in a room like this it was as though nothing had changed, no time had passed. 

 _Still_ , he thought with a pang, _isn’t something missing?_

He quickly shoved the thought from his head and said, “Haru, let’s put them in the fridge for now. There’s curry on the stove and I just made cake. Anyone want coffee?” 

* * *

The party had officially started around five, and their conversation was still going strong by eleven-thirty at night. Sojiro had given them free reign of Leblanc (with the agreement that, come morning, all last traces of a party would be cleaned away), and now there were the remnants of abandoned card games strewn across the countertops, candy wrappers shoved into the booths, and a spattering of silly string draped over one of the barstools. 

None of it mattered right now. All that mattered was the warmth, the nighttime glow of Leblanc’s dim lights and the constant laughter bubbling up from Ren’s friends. 

But as is bound to happen at even the most raucous of parties, they eventually shifted to serious conversation. 

“Do you guys remember that guy Akechi?” Ann asked, and a hush fell. “Someone at work was talking about him the other day, wondering what happened to him, and I thought… isn’t it kinda freaky that we don’t even know? Like, what even _happens_ if you die in the cognitive world?”

Haru shuddered. “I don’t know. I’m just glad we never found out.” 

“They never found a body, did they?” Futaba said. Makoto shook her head. 

“No… they still held a funeral for him, though.” She eyed Ren.

“But what if he’s still out there?” Ren said. 

Ryuji snorted. “Then obviously dude doesn’t wanna be found. I’m pretty sure he is D-E-A-D dead. If you ask me, he kinda had it coming for what he did to us.” 

“I don’t know,” Ann said. “Wasn’t he just like all of us before we got our Personas? If I hadn’t met Ren… I would have been miserable under someone else’s control, just like Akechi was. And then, I mean, even after that, I almost killed Kamoshida, and there’s still this little part of me that wishes I had…” 

“Are you for real right now? You really siding with _him?!”_ Ryuji sputtered. 

“His morals were questionable, but I have to say I agree with Ann,” Yusuke chimed in. “The canvas of our lives could have been painted with much darker shades.” 

“Ignoring Fox’s bad joke, even _I_ can’t completely hate Akechi,” Futaba added. “All of us were pretty lost before we met this guy”—she jabbed a thumb in Ren’s direction—“and by the time Akechi met him he was already too far gone. I guess I feel for him, a little.” 

“We failed the person who needed our help the most,” Ren said. 

“I don’t think you could have helped him, Ren,” Makoto told him. “Futaba’s right. He was too far gone.” 

Ann leaned over to rest her head on Makoto’s shoulder. “I guess we’ll never know.”

And then, right on cue, there was a tap at the door. Ren whipped around, almost causing Haru to spill her mug of coffee in the process. The ex-Phantom Thieves held their breaths.

It came again shortly thereafter, and Ren slid out of the booth and dusted candy powder off his shirt before treading over to peer through the darkened window. Shadows obscured the alleyway, but with his hand over his eyes and his nose pressed against the glass Ren could just make out the shape of someone standing outside, completely still in the quiet summer night.

“Who is it?” Haru whispered. 

Ren shook his head and leaned back from the door. 

“Not sure,” he replied, and the tapping came a third time, and a chill ran down his spine.

“Who’s there?” he called.

“It’s me,” came a faint voice. “I’m sorry to bother you.” 

Ren paled. He turned the handle slowly to peek into the night, and there was Akechi, still looking weathered and world-weary, his naked hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“Can I come in?” Akechi said, and for lack of any excuse to turn him away, Ren pulled the door open and allowed him inside.

When he closed the door it sounded like a thunderclap, and the group stared at both of them as though they’d been struck by lightning. 

“Speak of the effin’ devil,” Ryuji muttered, and Ann smacked him firmly on the back. 

“Ren!” Futaba hissed. “I-is that a ghost?” 

Akechi looked to her with tired eyes. “I can assure you I’m very real,” he said. “I’m sorry to drop in on you all like this, but… I thought, after all this time, I owed you all an apology…” 

He glanced at Ren, who looked away. 

“To hell with that!” Ryuji yelled. He tried to stand, but Ann pulled him back down with a tug of his sleeve.

“Let him speak!” she told him. 

“You’re under no obligation to hear me out,” Akechi said. “But I hope that you will anyway.”

As they had many times before, the Phantom Thieves looked to Ren for guidance. Ren nodded once. 

“We’ll listen,” he said. “But if you’re looking for forgiveness, you might not find that here.” 

Akechi exhaled. “I’m prepared for that.”

Ren pulled a barstool over to the table where the rest of them were seated, and they all settled in under an enchanted silence as Akechi relayed to them what had happened after the walls had gone up.

* * *

When he was finished, the group let out an extended sigh. 

“I don’t expect anything from you, least of all friendship. But… I am grateful you allowed me to apologize,” Akechi concluded.

“Thank you,” Makoto said. 

The rest of them murmured their agreements, except Ryuji, who sat with his lips pursed and his arms crossed over his chest.

An awkward beat came and went, and it was Futaba who broke it: “Oh, look at the time, it’s already past midnight. I gotta go.” 

“We should probably head out, too,” Makoto told Ann. 

“Me too,” Ryuji said.

“And me,” Yusuke and Haru said in unison. 

“Morgana, you should come with me!” Futaba added. “I’ll bring you back to Leblanc in the morning.” 

Morgana narrowed his eyes but quickly hopped up to wrap himself around her neck.

Ren smiled at his friends. “I’ll see you all soon. Maybe I can come back in a few months.”

“We’ll Skype!” Ann reassured him. “We can watch Ryuji fail at Overwatch again.” 

“Hey!” Ryuji exclaimed.

Ann laughed. They each took turns giving Ren farewell hugs while Akechi stood off to the side, shifting from one foot to the other. Ren watched them go, a bittersweet taste in the back of his throat. Even though their group was closer than ever, he couldn’t help but wonder if each time he saw them would be the last; if some great catastrophe would split them straight down the middle, tear them apart altogether. But if Akechi, the most contentious subject amongst them, wasn’t the catalyst behind their dissolution, what else could possibly separate them?

“You’re still here,” Ren said, long after the bell on the door had gone quiet. 

“Do you need help cleaning—“

“Akechi, what are you doing?” 

Akechi blinked at him. “I should think it’s obvious. When I got to thinking about it, about what you said to me back then, I realized that you were right. I should have gone with you.” 

“But you didn’t.” 

“No. I didn’t.” 

Ren bowed his head. “You know I would have done anything to save you back then. But I couldn’t make you want to be saved.” 

“But you did.” Akechi’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “It took years, but this is me starting to save myself. I can’t begin to describe how difficult it was even showing up here the first time, let alone a second, but I have to do this. If for no one else, then for me.” 

“Fair enough.” For a moment they were silent, and then Ren continued, “Do you have somewhere to sleep?”

“Wherever I can,” Akechi admitted.

“You can stay here tonight, then. I’m leaving tomorrow morning.” Ren pushed himself up and began to gather the loose wrappers and half-empty bottles, and Akechi did the same.

Between the two of them the cafe was restored to its usual cleanliness within an hour, and Ren was ready to fall face-first into the lumpy old mattress, but he’d already offered to sleep on the couch and let Akechi take the bed. 

Upstairs, Akechi ran a finger down the length of one of the gloves atop the TV.

“You kept them?” he asked, and it took Ren a moment to figure out what he was talking about. 

“Oh,” he said. “I forgot those were there. Do you want them back?”

“No. I don’t need them anymore.” Akechi drifted through the attic, brushing his hand against faded ephemera from their year as heroes. “I lived in my own apartment back then. It was a nice place. Clean. I remember the first time I came up here, though. I thought it was… chaotic. But I remember thinking that, simply by walking in, I had learned more about you as a person than I could have through ten conversations. And when I went home that night, I realized I had no idea what kind of person lived in my apartment. It was so impersonal, it could have belonged to someone else entirely. The opposite of how you lived.” 

“Sounds like you were a little jealous,” Ren told him.

“I’ve always coveted what seemed to come so effortlessly to you. You’ve never had to fake your death, change your name, just to run from the person you were.” 

Ren let out a sharp laugh. “Maybe I haven’t changed my _name_ , but I _have_ faked my death _and_ run from someone I once was.” 

“You’ve never had to chase after anyone, hold someone down and force them to love you,” Akechi continued. “Love chases after _you_. Me? I could never be so lucky. I suppose I was just born the wrong way.” 

“That’s kind of dramatic. And also untrue. You had love coming at you from a million different directions. You just refused to believe it.” 

“Well, my fans adored a facade. That was an empty illusion of me. A character I’d created. It doesn’t count.” 

Akechi had circled the room and now stood facing Ren, who was seated on the bed, looking up at him. 

“And me?” Ren challenged. “ _I_ saw _you_. But that doesn’t count either, right? For some arbitrary reason.” 

Akechi flinched as though he’d been struck. “What do you mean?” he said. 

Ren thought, _Don’t look at me with that dreary imagined headline embossed into your eyelids: “fatal crash takes two”; like there’s already glass on the asphalt and I’m looking at an emergency heart transplant; you’ve spent over twenty years driving drunk on the wrong side of the freeway, am I the first siren you hear behind you, or the first headlights you see coming toward you through the windshield? No, no, I can’t believe that. I don’t believe you didn’t already know._

And Ren knew what Akechi was thinking, too; he was thinking: _Don’t look at me like I’m something you could love when I’m something you took for granted._

“Some detective you were,” Ren teased. “I thought the world of you, Akechi.”

“In the past tense? Not… that I blame you.” 

Ren shrugged. “In any case it was true back then. Painfully so. But we both know what you would have said in response if I’d told you that.” 

“I wouldn’t have believed you. I know. I still would not.” 

“I know that.” Ren reached out, took Akechi’s hand, clasped it gently between his own. “Thank you for coming here tonight. 

Akechi said nothing. He merely trembled. 

“For the record, I’m still mad at you for letting me think you were dead for so long, even if I understand why you had to wait,” Ren added. “But I’m grateful you came back at all. You’ve grown.” 

“Thank you,” Akechi said.

“It’s… kind of embarrassing to ask, but do you mind if I, uh, give you a quick hug?” 

Akechi made some kind of noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, and Ren stood and lightly wrapped his arms around him, giving him a soft pat on the back in the hopes that it would ameliorate the stiffness. He was about to pull back when Akechi grabbed hold of him in return, squeezed him so tightly he thought he might combust, dug his fingernails into his back. 

He wondered if anyone had ever _hugged_ Akechi Goro before.

“Thank you,” Akechi said again, this time his voice little more than a whisper. “…I missed you.” 

“It’s nice to be missed,” Ren said into his ear. “But it’s even nicer to breathe. Do you think you could—?”

Akechi immediately loosened his hold on Ren’s torso. He let one arm drop to his side and used the other to brush a lock of hair from his eyes. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was.”

Ren’s lips twitched into a smirk. “If you ask me, I think it represents a possibility.” 

“Of what?” 

“Us talking again sometime,” he said, and Akechi cracked a smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> it's so hard to write big group interactions idk how to do it!! anyway shuake week is finally over and I no longer have an excuse to procrastinate on working on my original stories for nanowrimo ;0; thank you everyone who's commented/left kudos/read my fic; it's been a blast. maybe next year i'll be less half-assed and actually plan ahead but i still had a lot of fun, even if they're of dubious quality. at any rate, much love <3


End file.
